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To Thomas Bell [26 April – August 1845]1

Down

Saturday

My dear Bell

Would you kindly take the trouble to send me a line (to 7. Park St. Grosvenor Square) to tell me Bibron’s2 address, without indeed, which wd be much better, you could tell me the two points, I am anxious about.—viz, the name of the Trigonocephalus3 from B. Blanca and secondly whether there be more than one species of snake at the Galapagos, & whether such have a S. American physiognomy.4

I am right, in thinking that you sent all my snakes to Bibron?

My reason for wanting to know is that I am preparing a second Edit. of my Journal for Murray’s Colonial Library.

I hope you are well; does not this rain gladden your heart, when you think of the meadows of Selbourne?5

Footnotes

Gabriel Bibron. Bell had sent CD’s Beagle collection of snakes to him (see Reptiles, p. vi) for use in Duméril and Bibron 1834–54, vols. 6 and 7: in vol. 6, p. xii, the authors acknowledge having received specimens from Bell.

Trigonocephalus was the then accepted term for a genus which included pit vipers. The snake in question interested CD because, though it lacks a rattle, it displays the rattlesnake’s habit of rapidly vibrating the end of its tail when irritated or surprised: ‘showing how every character, even though it may be in some degree independent of structure, has a tendency to vary by slow degrees’ (Journal of researches 2d ed., p. 96). In a note at the end of the volume (p. 506) CD reports that Bibron thought it to be a new species, which he proposed to call T. crepitans.